Rationality through blasphemy?
Posted on: February 8, 2007 - 1:37am
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Rationality through blasphemy?
I took the blasphemy challenge, and throughly enjoyed The God Who Wasn't There, but it occurred to me shortly after taking the challenge that it is in fact not rational at all. I do not believe in a jeudeo-christian god, or any other for that matter, but I cannot honestly say that I KNOW one doesn't exist. Even if i don't believe that i will be condemned to hell doesn't mean it wont happen if I was wrong. Since there is a possibility (albeit extremely small) that the jeudeo-christian god exists, how is it rational to take the blasphemy challenge?
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Oh well. Your ass is doomed.
I suspect you are another one of those atheist wannabes. More likely an agnositic who wants to believe the redefinition (your preist brian sapient redefined) of atheist.
Check me out, I am an atheist. Got that? My name is American ATHEIST. Don't you ever read?
If you're talking about the "Am I agnostic or atheist?" thread, Todangst wrote that. And Jake is in the video.
http://www.rationalresponders.com/am_i_agnostic_or_atheist
Don't you ever read stuff before you talk about it? You remind me of Frank.
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Exactly as I suspected. Another person who believes everything they read (well everything your preist wants you to believe). The redefinition of atheist to include agnostics is absurd. Call it something else, but why water down the term atheist to become meaningless?
Just keep on believing what the people on this site want you to believe. Seems you are blind to that thought. Too bad, when you mature, you will see how manipulative the preist (brian) and his religious zealots really are.
Stop using your suspicions to make these silly comments. They don't want me to believe anything. Can you give me a good example of something they want me to believe in? Also, can you give me a good reason why I should believe your claim? Hmm, but then again, maybe you might be trying manipulate me!
Another thing, it's spelt "priest"!
*SIGH*
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Even the word "religious" on your username is incorrect.
Do you ever have a hard time logging in, like when you spell it right by accident? Just curious.
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Look.
Even if there is a God, do you really think it is possible that either heaven or hell exists? Honestly? One place of pure happiness and another of pure agony? Do you really REALLY believe that there is even a MINUTE possibility that Hell (Note: a word not used in the Bible, but actually a phonetic equivalent of the Celtic goddess of the underworld) or heaven exists? I certainly don't.
It defies all rationality to believe that there could be any such extreme place that consists of forever being tortured. If Lucifer's in charge I'm sure he'd love to meet all of us. If God's the one running the torture show then He's not so benevolent as His followers claim Him to be, is He?
If you ask me, Heaven sounds like a retirement home with daily gardening and sewing classes - that's even more "Hellish" if you ask me.
sage:
Doubt is not the question at hand; I dont believe for a minute that I am going to hell or any other after life for that matter. The question that I posed is about rationality. Yes, the blasphemy challenge is satire, but that doesnt automatically mean religion is false. Even a fallacious statement can be true at times. I know how far fetched the possibility of being wrong about the blasphemy challenge is, but possibilty is not particually relevent in the question because its a matter of risk. How is it rational to risk your possibly nonexistant soul if you do not understand how life "works"?
Again, I am merely playing delils advocate for the sake of debate. I dont really believe that i am going to hell, but since i dont fully understand the universe, it is possible(but absolutely inprobable).
On what grounds do you say there's a possibility that the judeo-christian god exists? The god described in the bible is impossible on multiple levels: logically, physically and psychologically. The possibility that you are admitting is the same as the possibility that you are actually a brain in a vat and that everything you think you know about the world is wrong. We can all admit this possibility - but to what end?
You can say that the god of the bible doesn't exist with the same certainty that you can say that the sun will come up tomorrow. If that isn't "knowing" something, then I submit that you have set the bar too high for "knowledge".
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Uh oh. I'm going to get started on the pro's and con's of inference here ^_^
DO we, indeed, know that the sun will rise tomorrow? Not for sure... But perhaps that is the point you were making, Tilberian?
I see where you're coming from Devnill. I do. Probably moreso than I can demonstrate here. I guess the question is, given the extent to which you believe there is no God, how improbable do you think it is that God exists? And, even if God exists, how improbable is it that he is vengeful and would punish a blasphemer with eternal damnation?
That is the challenge at hand. Everyone would know that there's a possibility that they're wrong, however minute. That doesn't make them agnostic, it just means they're neither arrogant nor narcissistic. But because that probability is to them so low, it is then rational to speak out for the purpose of letting people know that there are those who feel it is about as likely that the Judeo-Christian God exists as it is finding a 6-inch mini T-Rex in your soup!
I am saying that there is a possibility because i dont know all of the facts. The facts as i see them point to no judeo-christian god, but that is only from what i observe. In the middle ages, the understanding of science was weak at best, but from what was observed, demonology was a plausible cause for the ailments and mass madness that sometimes occured. We know now that much of the illness that occured was due to a bad food supply, but at the time, they had no way of knowing. Today, people pride themselves on the acheivements of science, but there is so much that is still not understood. For all we know, god really could exist, but is waiting for us to die so he can point and say ""HAHA TOLD YOU SO" If you take the bible as it was written as people recalling what they saw and learned through generations, it is not impossibe, just as it is not impossible of the existance of the flying spagetti monster. Sure it is so far beyond probbality, its hardly worth knowing, but there still is a possibility
They want you to believe their redefintion of atheist.
To reiterate my earlier point - it's a challenge. That's the point. That is the rationale. Yes, it is so improbable that it is not worth considering.... THAT IS THE POINT.
Jeez, do you really think God would punish you for not believing in Him, when He "made" you in such a way that you would disbelieve his existence? If you worry too much about the possibility that God exists then you're more agnostic than atheist or should be one of those people who goes to church because they're afraid of being wrong. If you're not one of those people, then you should see the point of vocally denying the existence of God.
Our knowledge now is better and more reliable than the "knowledge" of the middle ages. This isn't chauvinism, this is fact. There was no reliable way of recording and disseminating information in the middle ages. The scientific method hadn't been invented. Only a tiny proportion of the population could read and write. Worst of all, all inquiry was muzzled by the church and condemned if it violated doctrine. It is simply not accurate to say that we are as ignorant of the universe as those people were. They had almost no knowledge of natural law. We HAVE figured out many things about how the universe works and, on existing knowlege, the god of the bible is impossible.
Keep in mind that many of the "discoveries" of the post-Renaissance era had in fact already been discovered by the Greeks and other ancients prior to christianity putting a hammerlock on all science. The fact that we have independantly come to the same conclusions about the world as people 3000 years ago did should tell you something about the robustness of our present knowledge.
You make a good point about the FSM. If god is possible, so is he. But would you hestiate, AT ALL, to take the FSM's blasphemy challenge? Of course you wouldn't. So what's the real difference between god and the FSM? Billions of people take god seriously and no one takes the FSM seriously. Your hesitation comes from sheer force of popular opinion and nowhere else.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
"But would you hestiate, AT ALL, to take the FSM's blasphemy challenge?"
I didn't hesitate on the blasphy challenge, and i wouldnt heistate for A FSM version either, but that is not the issue becuase FSMism doesnt condemn you to hell for blasphemy.
Perhaps I was not clear enough in my argument. I am arguing that it is not totally rational to take the blasphemy challange not because god could exist, but becuase blaspheme is an unfogiviable sin to the christian faith. It is common sence not to point a gun at someone even if you know the gun is empty, and the saftey is on.
Without any repurcussion, i belive that blaspheming for the sake of blaspheming is pointless. However, in a situation such as this, it can be potentially useful. If the purpose of the blasphemy is to spread a message that people dont need to embrace faith to live productive lives, it probbally would help to overcome the stigma associated with athiesm. The only way to overcome persucation is to face it and it seems like the challenge has the potential to do just that.
Dude, "spelt" is the same shit.
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Oh well, I knew you couldn't come up with something good.
Please pay attention, I gave my answer in the previous post - ah but you are concerned about the spelling rather than the message - please reread my previous post.
Are you talking about this?
Stop making a big deal out of how they define atheist. But you didn't answer my other question about your username, so I'll post it again.
I'm not lying, look at how you spell it.
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LMAO!
Well, someone had to tell him. :D
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American Atheist and rr are religous bigots I think you should move on and get past spelling issues. Yes "edumucation" is good and makes arguments sound "gooder," but I think you can both agree you are both human and get to the meat of the issue.
If the jeudeo-christian god is defined as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving then it would be rational to deny it exists.
If he thinks a contradictory deity can exist then yes he would have no rational for it. Here is the thing you don't understand about most people here. We don't have to be unsure or sure across the board of gods. Yeah there is more then one idea of god so I can't so I deny all gods.
Like I've said before give us the god and the unforgivable sin to commit.
No people did not blindly follow. Many people including myself looked into the idea of the unforgiveable sin and the christian god. Many used it as a plateform to come out about their lack of belief.
Maybe if we gave them after-death-threats...
Here is what you need to do to prove RRS is a religion.
Sounds like we are pretty much on the same page. However, you are clearly ignorant of the horrible fate that awaits those who deny the FSM's noodly goodness.
I really don't care if the blasphemy challenge has a point or not. Even taken as a pure publicity stunt to raise awareness of atheism, it has been a stunning success.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
EVen if i don't believe that i will be condemned to hell doesn't mean it wont happen if I was wrong. Since there is a possibility (albeit extremely small) that the jeudeo-christian god exists, how is it rational to take the blasphemy challenge?
Just read my signature quote:
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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The whole point of the exercise is to say that you are not afraid of being a non-believer. You are saying that you do not believe in a god or the supernatural. How is that irrational?? It is only irrational if you believe that God will damn you to hell. If you don't believe it is a statement of where you stand. A symbolism if you will.
"Those who think they know don't know. Those that know they don't know, know."
Are you actually trying to suggest that Brian here has managed to not only create this site(which is a rather pathetic site considering:...), but also be able to convince all the linguistic authorities on english to redefine a word just for him? Oh damn, it's worse than that! He's also convinced all the linguistic authorities dealing with translation between english and any other language. Holy shit man! It's a massive conspiracy!!!!!!11one
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
You don't even know the actual definition of "agnostic". Agnosticism is an epistemological position, not an ontological position. Therefore, you can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. Before you attempt to attack others on this board, do your homework.
Yes! *High five*
See the thing is you can be an atheist AND AN AGNOSTIC. you can also be an atheist AND A GNOSTIC!!!!1!!!
Heck, you can be a theist, and an AGNOSTIC.
If you don't believe in god you are an atheist, period. Doesn't matter if you are an agnostic also.
Get over it RR R R B.
I'm tired of you and ur possy doing the self-touching-holy-dictionary love dance!